A Renegade Star
by shvartzit
Summary: Lucy is running. She died on the inside in her golden cage and she left before the emptiness consumed her. Unfortunately for her, she can't stop running, not for a long time. The second time she comes across the group of guild mages led by a pissed blonde, she's starting to wonder if maybe she can actually survive the pursuit after her life. ON HIATUS
1. The Kinpamus

**The Kinpamus**

 **May 3rd, X782**

"Laxus, I think it's hunting you!" Evergreen shouted from her spot by the creak, over a hundred yards away.

"Oh, yeah? What makes you say that?!" The blonde would normally scowl and roll his eyes at the declaration of something so _obvious_ , but he was very focused on running away from the _thing_ that chased him around at the moment, so there really wasn't enough time for that.

"Freed will you trap that thing already?!" The green haired mage tried his best to think of a way to trap the creature without trapping with it his beloved leader, but it was a bit difficult concentrating on that when he could see Laxus being chased by the Thing, which was being chased by Bickslow.

"Laxus, this way!"

He ran _this way_ , and the Thing was trapped in a Rune cage, thrashing inside of it.

Now that they had time to look at it, the creature appeared to be partly humanoid. It had the figure of a woman and blonde hair, but that was about the end of it; the creature had silted pupils in blood red eyes, spike-like teeth that looked somewhat like those of a piranha, spikes sticking out of its arms, and very sharp looking claws.

"Damn… ever seen anything like it?" Bickslow's whisper was the first thing to break the silence as the group of mages observed the creature. It indeed followed the blonde with its eyes; when Laxus moved around the Rune cage, the creature moved with him to face him.

It made Laxus' skin crawl.

"What are we supposed to do with it now? It's obviously too dangerous to let loose, and we know nothing about it," Evergreen glanced at Freed, "Unless you read something about it in some book and can explain whatever it is."

Freed sighed and shook his head, "I'm afraid I know nothing of this creature, perhaps it would be best if we just... _put it down_. For the best interest of everyone, of course."

 _And so the hunter becomes the prey_ , Laxus thought before striking the creature with lightning. It wailed in agony and crumbled to the ground, but Laxus did not pause in his merciless attack.

Once the creature stopped moving, Laxus hit him one last time (just to be sure), but his lightning seemed to affect the creature differently this time, in a way it hasn't before.

The immobilized creature started glowing brightly, making the four mages to shift their gaze elsewhere. When they finally felt the light fade and looked back into the Rune cage, the creature was not there. Instead, a blonde female laid face down on the dirt, her limbs bruised badly, but there was no sign of the creature from earlier.

"Is this some kind of trick?"

Evergreen's eyes bulged out at the sight of the injured blonde. "Who cares? We need to get her out of the cage!" the brunette sprinted to her and rolled the blonde female onto her back.

She was dirty and bloody, but other than that one could think she was simply sleeping. Of course, once the three males broke out of their trance they rushed to help the Fairy mage.

Freed dispelled his Runes and kneeled next to the two girls, "She needs medical attention, _now_."

Laxus came closer as well, taking a better look of the blonde in his team mate's arms. "This feels like a trap, I don't like this; what happened to the creature?"

Shockingly enough, Bikslow supported him as the voice of reason this time, "I agree with Laxus, what if the creature is trying to deceive us?"

"And what if this is just an injured girl that needs medical attention?" Evergreen asked them, and by the defiance showing on her face he knew she would just help the girl, not caring what his opinion about that was.

"Well I'm not going to risk an entire town because we brought something we can't control for help," he told her.

Freed perked up then, "I can find out if the girl is human or not."

 **LaLuLaLuLaLuLaLuLaLuLaLu**

Laxus wasn't sure how, but he managed to teleport all five of them in one go to the closest village, and he wasn't going to tell anyone about that obviously.

They were lucky enough that one of the villagers was a healer because Laxus didn't think he could teleport even himself to any distance longer than a mile.

What he was really confused about though, was why they had to stay and wait for the blonde to wake up?

The zodiac keys they found on her implied that she was a mage herself and could therefore take care of herself, and if she wasn't a mage, she was either strong enough to take the keys from the mage they originally belonged to, or she was friends with someone that trusted her enough to give her their magic items, which meant someone would come and look for her.

But his team didn't listen to a word he said, so now he had a sore neck from trying to nap in one of those stiff chairs, but even his nap was interrupted now; the blonde girl woke up.

She groaned and Evergreen rushed to her side. Her eyes were unfocused and her breath was shallow, the blonde girl looked around in confusion.

Lucy's return to the land of the living was an unpleasant one, to say the least. Everything hurt; even her eyelids, and she had no idea where she was, or who were the people in the room with her.

It hurt to breath, her throat felt like sandpaper. Everything was still a bit blurry, but then Lucy felt something pressing to her chapped lips and then cool water were flowing into her mouth and her throat felt much better.

She had no recollection of what happened or how she got to what was apparently an infirmary, but she didn't really care. Lucy needed to get back on her feet and cover her tracks.

Actually, when Lucy's mind finally got into gear again, she realized what she really needed were her keys and clothes, although maybe not in that order.

A quick scan of the room showed her that three of the four people present in the room looked at her with matching concerned expressions, but the fourth guy, a muscular, blonde guy with a scar over his right eye, he looked bored and irritated; unfortunately, her keys and clothes were nowhere in sight.

Well, time to work on getting out of here she thought. "Where are my keys?" Lucy croaked, her voice raspy and she grimaced; she sounded like a pedophile.

The big blonde smirked. His hands were both in the pockets of his fur lined white coat, but when he pulled his right hand out; his long fingers were wrapped around her key ring.

Lucy's mouth opened and she had a very bad feeling about how this whole mess was going to end. "Do you know what they are?" She asked him in a whisper.

He smirked down at her, "Yes, I do. Now here's what is going to happen now; you are going to tell us everything we want to know, namely who you are, what you were doing in the forest, what you know about the creature we saw there that chased after me, what happened to you, and only after you tell us all of that, you'll get the keys back."

Lucy glared at the blonde, his condescending smirk made her want to punch him so bad, but she had a feeling his friends won't approve; and besides, she wasn't in a good enough condition to start punching people randomly.

"I'm not telling you shit. Where's the rest of my stuff? I want them back."

Laxus wanted to strangle the tiny blonde. He knew how much Holder Mages depended on their magical items, how could she act so nonchalantly when her keys were?

Nevertheless, he nodded to Freed, whom pulled her clothes from a bedside table and handed the worn clothes to the blonde in the hospital gown. All four guild mages averted their gaze when she changed right there in front of them.

She still didn't have a lot of strength, and her condition wasn't of importance to her, because she just hopped off the bed, and after wobbling for thirty seconds or so, she walked straight up to Laxus with determination written on her face.

"I want my keys back… please," she gritted her teeth over the last word.

"I think I'm going to keep them for a bit until you decide to cooperate." He dangled the key ring high above her head tauntingly.

"The creature is called Kinpamus, it preys on blondes." She snapped, "Are you going to be a fucking asshole forever or are you going to be considerate of an injured girl and _give me back my fucking keys_?!"

"I already told you I'm holding on to them until you tell me everything I want to know," Laxus' eyes swept over her once more, "Will you sit the fuck down already? You're going to collapse any minute now!"

She ignored him, but took another sip of water. "The creature in the forest is called Kinpamus, it's a spirit with a… well, there isn't a nice way to say it - it has a blonde fetish." The girl looked somewhat embarrassed to say it, and truthfully, Laxus felt slightly self-conscious at that moment as well.

"… A blonde fetish?"

Now Lucy was really blushing. "Yep; the Kinpamus feeds on the flesh of blonde men, but it takes the bodies of blonde females as host until the host's body dies, or until they are separated; in the case of separation between the host and the spirit, the Kinpamus dies." She looked at the four of them as she considered her own words, "I guess I should thank you then."

"Answer the rest of my questions," Laxus instructed her.

Lucy was absolutely furious; first, she ran into _twenty fucking Vulcans_ , then she was possessed by a stupid spirit with a _blonde fetish_ only seconds after she dealt with all the damned Vulcans, now she wakes up injured to a bossy blonde and his silly groupies, and to top it all off the retarded blonde has her keys and refuses to give them back!

"Listen you moronic jerkoff, I am not in the mood for your stupid questions, nor will I ever be for that matter, so if you would just be a good boy and give me my keys back before you drop them like the idiot you appear to be." She threw the water from her glass at him in anger. Most of the water didn't even hit his face, most of it ended up on the floor so now he was standing in a puddle of water.

The Celestial mage thought in her head that if the scarred blonde was a cartoon, steam would shoot out of his ears, his face red, and all the water that stayed on him would vaporize because he would be _'fuming'_.

Honestly he reminded her of Aquarius in that moment; oh, how she wished she had her keys with her at that moment, not that they would have helped her much at that moment, but still.

Speaking of Aquarius… the injured blonde smirked internally. "Seriously though, be a douche all you want, but don't drop my keys, okay?"

Laxus would be the first one to say that he had problems with authority – he just couldn't handle being told what to do. He would do exactly the opposite of what he was told, especially when it came from people he deemed inferior to him, like the girl before him.

"Oh, and what will happen if I will? As long as _you_ don't hold them, they're just keys."

Lucy glared at his taunting expression; _just push him a little bit more…_ "They're important to me! We went over it already, these keys are not just keys, so don't you dare to disrespect my spirits by dropping their keys!" she raised her voice. _C'mon you arrogant fuck, take the bait…_!

"Laxus…" the green haired man looked at the two blondes in a calculating manner, his hand on his sheathed sword.

Lucy snorted, "Are you going to let your boyfriend protect you now? Pathetic." The dangerous looks she got from all four strangers put her on edge, maybe she went too far?

"Listen here girly, if I were you, I'll watch my mouth." Laxus' patience was about to run out, and he didn't have much to begin with. "It would be a shame if I accidentally squashed your little keys." He sneered with an evil smirk.

Lucy's fists clenched, "Like hell you will!" the younger blonde's patience wasn't much better. Actually, hers was much worse, and she needed to vent – and if she could use that for Plan B who'd blame her?

She kicked his balls.

And it hurt a _lot_. Laxus tensed completely for a moment before his whole body seemed to shrink into itself, his hand letting go of the key ring to grab his crotch.

With a triumphant smile she snatched the keys before they touched the ground (it would be a shame if Aquarius killed her after all of this), and called out Taurus. "Get us out of here!"

"Anything for your hooooot body~!"

And then she was gone.

 **()()  
(O.O)**

 **Word count: 2242**

 **Well hello there my lovely readers, welcome to Toon Town! oops I meant Loon Town XD *blushing***

 **This is also the last chapter of my LaLu week if anyone is interested...**

 **This story is going to be crazy. Yes, Lucy will be OOC. No, there won't be Lalu for quite some time. I don't know how long it'll be (either 7 chapters or 22, I'm not sure yet). I had so much to say right now but I'm up for 19 hours, after 3 hours of sleep and I need to get up early and I don't have wifi!**

 **Every review equals another paragraph in the next chapter!**


	2. Trust Me Not (Part 1)

**Trust Me Not (Part 1)**

 **June 20th, X782**

Lucy wasn't sure just when she had become a humanoid squirrel, but she had to admit to herself that it was to be expected considering everything.

For the past year the blonde had been living for various periods of time in forests; sleeping on thick branches and scavenging nuts from trees. The transition to a half-squirrel hybrid was practically inevitable.

And now she was confined to a branch. Actually, she had been stuck in a tree-top for several days now. It was nerve wracking at first, but now it was just annoying.

The Celestial mage's self-imposed confinement to the tall tree she was living in started one night when a large group of people woke her up. She couldn't see much in the dark without exposing herself, but the screams were enough to keep her from moving.

Staying silent had a few upsides, and she even managed to gather some information in the last few days when criminals past under her during patrols; an organized group of criminals who were not mages took a group of children from the village located right outside the forest, holding them hostage and unharmed (for the moment at least) by order of "The Boss".

"The Boss" was apparently a mage, and a power-crazed one at that. He was after a magic gem he was certain the village people were hiding somewhere inside the village, and that they would give it to him if he took their young ones.

She had to admit that it was a great plan. None of the villagers were a mage, or a fighter of any shape or form, so there would be minimal resistance; and really, who would let anything happen to their child?

There was only one big flaw to the amazing plan: the villagers didn't have the gem.

Thanks to Grandpa Crux, Lucy found out that, about a decade ago, a group of bandits took the gem (which wasn't magical at all to begin with, just sort of valuable, but not even that as a matter of fact), which meant that if the mage behind the whole operation was only a little bit smarter and did his research, none of this would have happened.

She did consider trying to save the kids, but she didn't have enough solid information to form a solid plan. The one time she left her tree was when she thought of helping the kids, but once she saw where the kidnappers were hiding, she ran back to the safety of her tree – ashamed but undetected.

She already figured out, thanks to her eavesdropping, that the Boss wasn't only power-hungry, he was also blood-thirsty; making her wonder how much longer it would take before he snapped and went on a killing spree, and if she had enough nuts for the next few days before she had to risk getting out of her tree for more food.

The blonde was snapped out of her musings sometime around noon by the sound of approaching footsteps.

"…in the forest… tch! Useless idiots." The Celestial mage frowned at the male voice. It was a bit familiar, and she didn't like that.

"Can you blame them for not coming in after that psycho chopped one of them into confetti?" a second male voice said, followed by five high-pitched echoes crowing "Confetti! Confetti!"

The first voice, deep and thundering, kept with the second one, occasionally joined with the five echoes. As the voices grew closer, Lucy shifted slowly, trying to stay hidden yet find the sources of the voices with her eyes.

She nearly fell off her tree at the sight of the people walking her way.

It was the same group of mages from the Kinpamus incident! How could she forget the shocked expression on the giant blonde's face when she kicked him in the family jewels?

They weren't too far way, she realized with a start; they were too close actually. The Stellar mage squirmed, trying to re-balance herself when suddenly her foot slipped from under her.

"Eep!" the surprised squeal escaped her lips before she even noticed where her foot was.

The group of mages stopped and the blonde teenager held her breath, quickly pulling her leg back, crouching as close to the tree trunk as she could, and cursing her clumsiness in her head.

'Just keep going, don't notice me, please don't notice me' she repeated in her head.

But she wasn't that lucky – one moment she was crouching on a branch, hugging the tree trunk like it was her life line, and the next, every nerve ending in her body felt like it was singed, as a scream left her lungs and she found herself laying on the ground. Turning her head turned to the left, her vision filled with large, blurry boots.

She groaned, twisting and sitting up.

"What are you doing here?" It took Lucy longer than she liked to admit to realize the question was directed at her, then process the question and think of an answer for it.

She stopped rubbing the skin of her legs and looked up to see a blonde with a lightning shaped scar over his right eye.

"Hello to you too, Blondie. I've been doing just fine, how about you?" she grumbled. And went back to rubbing her sore limbs, trying to sooth the tingling feeling dancing across her skin; then she smirked and looked back down, seemingly focusing on her work again. "How are your balls?"

The scowl on his face deepened and he zapped her again, although with significantly less force this time.

"Ow!" she glared at him. "What's wrong with you?!"

"Absolutely nothing, now answer the question."

The little blonde groaned again, "we're back to that already?"

Not certain if she could stand on both her legs and walk, Lucy crawled back to the tree, then slowly pulled herself up to a standing position. Almost instantly she collapsed back to the ground with a surprised squeak, then huffed and glared at her feet as if they had betrayed her, but nevertheless she sat back against the tree and stretched her legs before her.

When she finally looked up, she was displeased to find four people looking back at her. She hated that feeling of being the focus of attention. Luckily for her, she was well versed in the art of changing subjects.

"What are those?" she pointed at the wooden tiki faces floating around the guy with the skirt and visor.

The guy grinned with his tongue slipping out of his mouth, "They're my babies!" this vague obscure announcement was followed by the five totems flying in circles above his head and chanting "Babies! Babies!"

Well, that explains nothing, Lucy thought. "Okay… so now that we cleared that up, how about we each go our own merry ways and pretend we never met in the first place? Sounds great, doesn't it?" the teenager suggested in a forced cheerful tone.

When none of the mages said anything, only stared at her with half pity and half amusement (except for the dude with the scar – he was just angry and smug and Lucy didn't particularly like him), the Celestial Spirit mage frowned.

It felt like a 4-on-1 staring contest, and Lucy didn't like her odds.

Throughout the contest, Lucy continued to rub her legs, slowly restoring the strength to her body. She knew that she was still unable to fight, but she realized that even with all of her magic power, she probably wouldn't be able to take down all four. Hell, she didn't even think she could push the blonde giant back a single inch, so fighting him was out of the question (although she definitely would if the need arose).

The green haired mage decided at last that the whole thing was beneath him, and with a roll of his eyes he spoke up. "What were you doing in that tree?"

The blonde girl smirked. "Crouching."

The older blonde held back a growl, "You know that's not what he meant."

Lucy crossed her arms across her chest, the image of haughty youth. "He asked what I was doing and I told him, don't be angry just because you didn't get what you want." She considered sticking out her tongue (much like the guy in the visor was doing), but she was at a disadvantage, and she wasn't interested in pushing the Lightning mage over the edge.

In that moment the brunette chose to intervene, hoping to prevent the situation from escalating. "Then why were you crouching? Sounds risky." She said calmly.

The blonde rolled her eyes at that, "no shit; I didn't ask to be blown off the tree, you know-" she suddenly paused, a horrible thought dawning on her. "You blew up all the food I had!" she accused the large blonde.

What an absolute ass! In her anger, she grabbed a small rock and chucked it at the other blonde, but he didn't even have to move to avoid it, which only helped to infuriate her further. What was she supposed to do now?!

The brunette gave her another pitying look, earning herself a glare, but that didn't deter her. "Do you have a name?" she asked softly.

"Yes…" the blonde on the ground sneered.

When it became obvious she wasn't going to say anything else, the brunette chose to continue. "My name is Evergreen, and those are Freed, Bickslow, and Laxus," she pointed at each of the men as she named them. "Is there anything you want us to call you?"

"Nope." Lucy replied, popping the 'p'.

Laxus scowled, interrupting before Evergreen had a chance to say any more, "We're wasting our time, she wouldn't help." They turned to leave then, Bickslow and evergreen somewhat hesitant to do so, but they turned away from her too.

Despite her own reluctance to have company, Lucy wanted to talk to someone, anyone. She mostly avoided people, trying not to attract attention to herself or get attached; she was always alone, always lonely, even when she was in some town or city, she tended to stick to street alleys, once even the sewers.

She refrained from making conversation with people as a rule, but these people were right there, standing in front of her, wanting to talk to her – already talking to her.

Or at least that was how she rationalized what she did next when she thought about it on occasion. "Wait!" she called out to them, "you're guild mages, right? You're here to help the villagers, aren't you?"

The four exchanged suspicious looks between them, "Are you a part of them? No, don't answer that, even if you are, you'll say 'no'." Laxus gave her a calculating look, reassessing her. "What do you know?"

The Celestial Spirit mage still didn't like the other blonde; instead of answering to him she turned to the other girl present.

"I'm not with the kidnappers, I was hiding in the tree. I have no idea how many of them there are, and only their Boss is a mage." She recited, but after a moment of thinking she decided to add: "they occasionally walk around the forest, kind of like patrols, but I don't think that there's a pattern."

The Lightning mage glanced at his green haired friend with a raised brow, but the Rune mage was deep in thought and didn't notice the muscular blonde's attempt at subtly getting his attention.

The four guild mages watched silently as the teen poked her calves and thighs before trying to stand up again, only this time she was successful.

She smiled cheerfully in their direction, flashing the group a row of teeth, "Are you coming or not?"

"Stop." Lucy frowned at what was undoubtedly an order from the towering blonde, not liking being bossed around, although she did stop, raising her brows at him in question.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Uh… to the head psycho's lair? It's not like I can give you directions, I'll just show you the way."

"No," Laxus stopped her from turning away again. "I don't trust you," he narrowed his eyes at her.

"And you'd be an idiot if you did." Lucy contemplated how to phrase her next words for about eight seconds before speaking again. "Look Blondie, I don't trust you either. You can't trust me, and this might be a trap, but either way, I'm your best option of finding those kids; so you can choose to search for them on your own, possibly meet one of them on your way and lose the element of surprise, but probably just get lost in the woods, or, you can follow me, and find what you're looking for, but taking into account that this could be a trap."

She took in their appearance. They probably wouldn't have a problem with the criminals, but leading them sounded like a win-win situation if anyone asked her.

Lucy felt a pang of jealousy as she looked at the four debating their next move without uttering a word. Jealous of their friendship, she looked away.

A minute later Laxus walked past her in the direction she started going to go to earlier. She didn't need him to tell her what they chose to do, instead opting to just smirk smugly and walking ahead, showing them the way.

 **()()  
(O.O)**

 **Word count: 2224**

 ***looking around scared* Hi~! Look I posted the next one! I know it took a while, but I was swamped and this chapter got all tangled up in itself and I just wanted to finish it already, and I am... out of solid excuses 0_0**

 **But that's not important; the important part is that I already finished the second part of this! it was going to be just one very long chapter, but I was like 'nah, I'll post it now, halfway through, so that the length will be sort of even. Plus, I'm so impatient I think I'll just post it as is and find some time to edit this later!' ^~^**

 **Another important part: THIS FIC GOT 73 FOLLOWERS AFTER I ONLU POSTED THE _FIRST_ CHAPTER. I mean, I'm happy, but why do people like it so much? It's not even that good! (I say that because I just read the first chapter myself a few minutes ago - it was horrible)**

 **AND TO THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS AN! Today is MistressAva's birthday and I wanted to post this as a birthday present for her, especially now that she is officially my beta~ And she's going to fix all of my stupid mistakes ^^**

 **Also, this story got 11 reviews last chapter, I really want at least 11 more before I post the next chapter - which I promise won't be posted in a month from now!**

 **GOOD NIGHT!**


	3. Trust Me Not (Part 2)

**Trust Me Not (Part 2)**

Bickslow was walking right behind the strange blonde girl as she led them to...wherever, watching how she held herself tall despite falling off a tree and handling Laxus. It was a proud stance; he thought she looked strong - stubborn and confident – like an amazon woman perhaps, filled with wilderness.

But that didn't stop him from feeling bad for her. She was obviously homeless, even if he didn't know she was staying up in that tree for a few days; Bickslow could tell - he had been the same way at one point.

The little blonde was incredibly thin; her joints were sticking out, her skin dirty, and her blonde hair was a mess, as if she hadn't seen a shower in weeks. A pink top with holes matched the torn pink leggings she had on under a black skirt with a hem line that looked like it was ripped off, making the skirt outrageously short, almost as short as Evergreen's. Her worn leather boots had no laces; instead, strips of black fabric (that seemed suspiciously similar to the fabric of her skirt) were wrapped around the boots to keep her feet from slipping out. Her belt had a whip tied to it and a small pouch hanging on the belt from the other side, probably holding her keys seeing as she had no pockets and he didn't see them anywhere.

She looked young too, no older than 16, maybe even less. Nevertheless, the Seith mage had a feeling she could blend right in with homeless thieves hiding in dark alleys and terrorizing old people.

" _Hmmmm-huhm-hm-hm_."

The tune she was humming was ironic, Lucy mused. In the original version of it, it probably sounded like something one would expect to hear at a funeral, but the blonde teenager hummed it cheerfully, and she thought it sounded a bit heroic too, like the background music you hear in movies when the bad guy dies.

Or at least that's what she imagined it sounded like, having never seen an action movie or any sort of movie not meant for children before; but she saw posters, and her imagination was overworking itself with the lack of things to do in forests and caves and abandoned buildings and sewers.

She was walking ahead of the group of mages, skipping unnecessarily over small roots and kicking small stones that were in her way. She was just about to kick another pebble when the guy with the visor unexpectedly fell into step right next to her, his 'babies' flying in zigzags all around them.

"Hello." He flashed his trademark grin in her direction, his tongue lolling out, and for the first time she noticed the strange mark on his tongue, matching the one on the brunette's chest.

"Hello." She smiled back. He seemed like a fun guy, a bit weird with his visor and his skirt and his tattooed tongue and his babies, but a nice guy.

"So what's a pretty girl like you doing in a forest like this?" he asked, making her giggle.

"What's a nice guy like you doing with stuck-ups like them? And I'm not talking about Evrgreen."

Bickslow cackled, but answered anyway. "Big guy over there," he gestured to Laxus, "saved my ass one too many times, and Freed is the one that invited me to the team in the first place, so I decided to teach him how to live the right way." His grin widened when she rolled her eyes, amused by his answer.

"You still didn't answer my question, though," he pointed out.

"And you didn't answer mine from before," she gestured at the flying totems above them, "but that's okay; it's not important." She told him gently, her voice all of a sudden laced with sadness. The change in her tone was so abrupt, Bickslow's eyes were drawn back to her face.

The Seith mage's grin slipped, and his tongue retreated back to his mouth. Less than a minute earlier he could have sworn she couldn't have been older than sixteen years old, probably younger, but now she looked so lost in thought and so despairing that he couldn't help but question what little he knew about her.

He was willing to admit that the girl unnerved him – young, smart, beautiful, stubborn, alone, ruthless, _nameless_.

The last part was the most bothersome by far. Why was she nameless? Who was she running from? What would scare a girl enough to be hiding in forests all by herself? If she was running from something, why not turn to the authorities, why not get help?

But Bickslow knew all too well that the authorities could sometimes be as helpful as water in your lungs and that help was hard to get, since no one cares enough to listen. Where were the authorities when he slept out in the streets because the other option was hiding in the closet and hoping dad didn't find him? Where was help when he saw his mother killed before his eyes, activating his magic before he even knew what it meant to be a mage?

But then Laxus and Freed and Evergreen found him in some restaurant's back alley, looking in the garbage for edible leftovers.

Both mages were too far away on their trains of thought that neither noticed how the five wooden totems started to fly in circles above the shorter blonde, giggling happily, until Pippi sighed contently, "so pretty~!"

That caused the blonde's step falter as she looked up in surprise, and even Bickslow looked up mildly shocked.

"Hush you, you'll make the rest of us look bad!" Papa scolded him.

The little blonde breathed out a small laugh as she saw the 5 wooden faces bickering and butting heads above her. "Are they always like this?"

Bickslow grinned lightly, "only around people they like."

"But they don't even know me."

"They're souls; they can see your soul and choose whether they like you or not based on that. They used to be real people like us," he explained but regretted his words once he saw her horrified expression.

"They can see my soul?!"

"Sorta? Sorry, that was a bad answer; they can just tell if you're a good or bad person based on your aura. Souls are great judges of character," he informed her.

She glanced warily at the 'souls' as they continued to bicker. "I think… never mind actually. I owe you an answer," she told Bickslow. "But maybe later, since we're almost there."

His answering grin was infectious. "Really?"

Lucy hummed, though she wasn't sure what he was excited about – finding the criminals, or the answer she promised him. Either way, she pointed to a hill right before them in the horizon, about 2 miles away.

"See that hill? The inside of it is hollow – it was carved into some nature temple a few centuries ago, but it has been abandoned for almost as long, something to do with Zeref if I remember correctly. Anyways, about halfway to the other side of the hill that way-" she pointed to the left side of the hill, "-there's a hidden entrance, and your kidnappers will be inside."

Once Lucy finished talking and her hand was back at her side she finally looked up, only to see four sets of eyes looking at her skeptically.

To the surprise of no one, Blondie was the first one to question her knowledge. "And how do you know all of that?"

"I camped there last winter, and the temple's history is carved into the walls."

Freed's mostly blank, calculating eyes flickered with hesitation and Lucy understood that none of them believed her. It didn't help when a little voice in the back of her head added ' _can you really blame them_?' And she couldn't really fight that logic either.

"I thought you were going to let me show you the way to the kidnappers, and I'm trying to do that but you're making this unnecessarily hard," she frowned.

Freed frowned as well, "how is being cautious can be considered unnecessary?"

Lucy rolled her eyes, "while we all agreed we can't trust each other, it was also implied that this could be a trap, but also that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. By following me, you all agreed to walk into whatever trap you thought was set up for you." The little blonde looked defiantly at all of them, one at a time.

"If this was a trap, which it isn't, you willingly walked into it; it was _your_ choice, now deal with it."

"She's right," Freed was the first one to speak. "If this is a trap, we agreed to walk into it."

As the other three mages reluctantly began to accept his words, Lucy realized something as well: Freed was the voice of reason. Laxus might be the leader, but Freed was the brain.

"So now what?" The younger blonde remained silent, but inside she was thankful towards the brunette for her question.

Laxus and Freed did the silent communication thing again before the green haired mage turned to the teenaged mage.

"What were you planning on doing if we hadn't showed up and got you out of that tree?" he asked.

She spluttered, "What kind of question is that?"

"I saw the little bag of nuts back there when you fell off that tree; if that's all you had left for nutrition then that can mean one of two things: either you had been up in that tree for only a few hours and those nuts were just a snack, which means that you are working with the abductors; or that you've been up in that tree for days, like you said, in which case you would have had no choice but to leave the tree at some point in the near future." He took a deep breath before continuing, "So I repeat, what was your plan?"

If she hadn't been so stunned by his quick deduction, that honestly freaked her out a bit, she would have probably said something like 'please, I can go for days without food', as if to counter his words, although it most likely wouldn't have had the desired affect anyway.

But she was stunned and struggling for air as she stared in disbelief at the mage. How could he possibly know all of that?

He seemed to recognize the shock in her eyes, sighed exasperatedly and spoke once more, "let's start with something simpler until you can think again. How long had you been in the tree?"

Wide eyed (and maybe a little scared – she completely underestimated the mage) she barely whispered "… Five days."

His green eyes bore into her brown pair and she had to fight off a shiver; but her fear dwarfed, at least for a moment, in comparison to her surprise at his next few words. "She's telling the truth."

Lucy was sure her eyes were going to fall out of their sockets with the way she stared at him. His friends stared at him too, but unlike her, they only tried to figure out what made him say those words and eventually gave up, then turned back to look at the young blonde.

"Do you trust me now?" she choked out. These people were dangerous; every cell in her body was screaming 'run!', and she would have done just that if she didn't fear the consequences of attempting to do it.

Freed nodded but it was Laxus who spoke next. "So about that plan…"

She didn't ask how he knew she had a plan for taking down the kidnappers; she had a feeling that she wouldn't like the answer.

So she told them. The guild mages listened in silence, not asking questions or interrupting. Once she finished, Laxus took charge, obviously very comfortable doing so.

"That's how we're gonna do it. Bix, Ever – you two do the first part; Freed, you're with me for the second part." The trio nodded, and to the Celestial Spirit mage's astonishment, Laxus turned to her with a wicked glint in his grey eyes.

"You'll join Freed and I," he told her in a tone that left no room to question the demand it unmistakably was.

Either way, Lucy kept quiet and nodded too, one thought clouding her mind: 'shit'.

 **()()  
(O.O)  
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 **Word count: 2058**

 **Holy shit that didn't even take 3 weeks! to be honest it's been finished in my notebook since before I posted the last chapter, but life happened and I didn't get a chance to finish this the way I wanted to.**

 **I would like to mention a few things: Lucy is the only one whose appearance is described because in this AU she's the only one that looks different and also to all of you that followed this story and aren't reading it for the first time now, I added dates to the first 2 chapters, and I'm telling you about that now because it's a bit important to the story (I haven't decided yet, but it helps me plan plot-according-to-time line)**

 **life is very complicated at the moment - I'm juggling work, school, finals, graduation show rehearsals, FINALS, and a few other things I have no idea how to say in English without taking an eternity to explain, and if I open that stupid dictionary one more time I will kill myself. Point is, that I don't think you'll get an update before May 10th, and I mean, my schedule is so crammed right now I pretty much gave up on sleep 2 weeks ago.**

 **All of that being said, I want to add that I am totally planning on participating in Colu week (my real OTP, Lalu is second place), and that once again I'm updating at 1am, a habit that needs to be stopped.**

 **HAPPY PASSOVER TO ALL YOU WHO CELEBRATE IT LIKE ME, I HOPE YOUR EXTENDED FAMILY IS NICER THAN MINE~! I just noticed that it's in caps lock but I feel too lazy to write all of that again oh well...**

 **Another thing: WE MADE IT TO 11 MORE REVIEWS: YOSH! I would love it if it happened again~**

 **anyways, have a lovely weekend**


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